Diyar and her family fled Syria when she was just a child. There were many challenges along the way and in 2019, Diyar arrived to the UK as part of the resettlement scheme where RMC were waiting to support. Diyar wanted to tell her story as part of Refugee Week.
See more of RMC’s Refugee Week coverage here
My name is Diyar, and today I want to share with you, my story. Im Kurdish and I was born in Syria in 2004 in a city called Aleppo.
Living in war
Me and my family had a hard life in Syria especially after the war, I was 8 years old when the war started. My family consisted of a father, mother, three daughters, and a son, I was the oldest of my siblings. Because of the war we couldn’t stay in that same city, because everything was getting worse and worse so we went to my dad’s village which was safer for us and it was far from the war zone.
But after a year and half even my dad’s village start to get dangerous because of the ISIS and because we used to live in Kurdish village and ISIS was targeting Kurds we couldn’t stay in that village and we left everything again behind us we left our school, family, friend and our home and we moved to Turkey.
We were not happy in Turkey because of inequality also because we couldn’t find any available houses to live in, so we used to live where my dad used to work, and in same year we found out that my mom had cancer and she had an operation, we went through a really difficult time because I was only ten years old, we couldn’t go to school because nobody was able to take us to school also I used to help my mom at home because she wasn’t able to do anything because her body was so weak, my dad was working all the time and my mom was in the hospital most of the time, because of that me and my siblings we used to stay alone and I used to take care of them since I was ten years old, that was so hard for me because I also needed someone to take care of me.
After one year my mom passed away and we moved to a different city, there were a lot of things going on in my life. In that city my dad was taking care of us, and after couple of months my dad applied for asylum to Europe, after couple of months my dad had a call from them telling my dad that The United Kingdom accepted our case and we will be able to go there but we need to do couple of interviews in Ankara which is the capital of Turkey.
Arriving in the UK – Big life changes
After 3 years of waiting finally we came to the UK it was on the in September 2019 The RMC (Refugee and Migrant Centre) was there in the airport waiting for us and they took us to our house they get everything ready for us the school, GP, hospital, and the house for us that was a new life and a hope because we had a lot of things that was going on and it was a new beginning for us.
After 6 months my dad had heart surgery, and after one year my dad went to Germany to get married, me and my siblings stayed in the UK.
But in Germany my dad fell into a coma and he passed away. we couldn’t see him and my cousins in Germany sent my dad’s funeral to Syria to his hometown.
I was 17 when my dad passed away and because there was no adult to take care of us the social workers were always telling us that they might take my 3 siblings, there are two girls and one boy the boy was the youngest one and he was 11 years old then my youngest sister she was 13 years old and my other sister who was 15 years old, so we were so young but I was nearly 18. It was only a couple of months left for me to be 18 years old.
We had Kurdish neighbours, my family used to know them from Syria. There was also my dad’s cousin who lives in Birmingham. We told our social worker that our neighbours and my dad’s cousin will come to us every day to stay with until I become 18 years old so legally I will be able to take care of my siblings and I will become a foster carer.
Coming through hard times
Through these hard times RMC, the school, our social workers, and all the people that we know there were helping us with everything especially the RMC, they were supporting me all the time until now.
After all that I become 18 and I applied to be a foster carer to be able to take care of my siblings and I did the test for 4 months and I did pass.
So now I’m a foster carer and we leave in the same house together and I take care of siblings as my dad and my mom used to do.
I just want to say thanks to everyone who helped us to pass those difficult times, thanks to the people that were with us all the time same as my family and they worked really hard to keep us together.
*Diyar’s name has been changed for this story
